Early Days

Jonathan Cauldwell was happy to supply games to RCL when Paul Andrews was in charge back in early 2016:

15/02/2016, 20:09

Hi Paul, just thought I'd let you know that I'd be happy to send you several more games for the new Vega Plus, should you decide to revise or improve the pre-loaded games list.

Brilliant thanks for that! Back to you soon on this!

27/11/2016, 23:22

Thanks for the reply on Twitter, sad that it came to this.

Hi Jonathan I am sorry I had to reply publicly but for obvious reasons I had to. You may not believe me at this time but I am sure in due course when this matter comes to a natural end, you will see that none of this was mine or Chris's fault at all. It's not appropriate to say anymore than that at the moment, but if in doubt speak to other rights owners or even say the Oliver twins. Regards Paul

In late 2016, more than 6 months after Paul Andrews had quit RCL, Cauldwell suddenly changed his tune and began tweeting claiming that Paul's previous company Alten8 didn't pay him what he was owed.

Bilge; happy with the price of a few pints. Only one company didn't pay what it owed me - Alten8

Jonathan Cauldwell helping RCL

Cauldwell made no secret of the fact he was actively assisting RCL by contacting developers to supply their games for the Vega+. In spite of his social media postings, none of the externally developed titles appeared on the prototype devices, including many of his own titles that were promised such as Jubbles.

Sick of the vitriol, now actively helping the Vega+. Contacted a few excellent Spectrum devs today, more games for the Vega+ #zxvega

Nazi references and the Vega+ Hate Mob

Cauldwell began his Nazi themed posts on Sunday the 4th June 2017 on Facebook:

The Vega+ hate mob has certainly poisoned the scene. Given the events of late May I would have hoped to have seen the last of this but we've at least shown that the scene is resilient. There's really only one side to be on and it isn't with George Haw-Haw and those who have been trying to stop backers getting their mitts on a fantastic product.

— Jonathan Cauldwell

It would appear that the best way to have a healthy discussion about the Vega+ is to ban people that disagree:

Somehow I managed to find the time to write two games in 2017, Jubbles and Egghead 6. 2018 marks ten years since I started work on Arcade Game Designer and it's still taking up most of my development time

Seems RCL have shipped a few hundred VEGA+ units with a handful of games, most written by myself. VEGA+ has attracted criticism, some justified, some malicious. Can't speak for RCL but for constructive comments on my games, PM me. Love games, would love to hear your thoughts

I really don't know any more. You stick to your guns, you do what's right in the teeth of fierce opposition and then the bad guys are conciliatory. Not long after some request your help. Yet the forces they unleashed are still being obnoxious. WTF?

Fair enough. Only 3 - 4 haters, non-backers trying to stop project behind the scenes & spreading misinformation. Understandably aggrieved backers not in same category. Knowing explosive information about what haters did and having to stay quiet when under attack isn't easy tho

Let's hope so. I naively tried to help but there were forces who were determined to stop the project. Still massively explosive revelations to come about the 3 or 4 haters who did that but it could be years before anyone can legally talk about it

Do yourself a big favour and be very careful what you tweet about RCL, Vega and Vega+. The scene currently has no idea what went on and I wouldn't want to see people getting drawn into criminal proceedings based on the blogs and vlogs of a few deliberately misinformed commenters

Knowing what's happened but being unable to tweet about it while under attack from trolls isn't a particularly pleasant experience. The trolls still have no idea but they'll find out eventually. I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the trolls' heroes

Not at all surprising to the very few of us that know what's really been going on (but can't talk about) for the past few years. It has been a nightmare and a handful of idiots will have to account for their actions

It's an odd feeling. I could tweet one sentence and the whole scene would know instantly and turn accordingly. That would be wrong though and I'd end up in serious trouble. I have to wait, potentially for years. Right now nobody knows who the good guys and bad guys are.

I said I'd leave the scene if the product didn't materialise. At the time people were still calling V1 pre-production units "prototypes" and denying they existed. It has materialised, albeit in a limited way, about 200 units or so shipped by my reckoning. Still under five percent of the total, certainly nowhere near the number of shipped units of its predecessor... I haven't seen a V2 so can't comment but it looks like some of the issues on the V1 haven't yet been resolved. That is disappointing but then I've not spoken to RCL for over a year so don't know what their plans are. I got involved to do my bit to try and help backers actually see a product and won't apologise for that. My involvement has been fairly minimal, providing software and doing some testing. Alas, I can't fix buttons or write emulator software.

No threats veiled or otherwise, I merely don't want to see members of the retro scene becoming embroiled in legal difficulties because they've been publishing misinformation put out by certain individuals. FS and yourself aren't the "haters", you're pawns in a far bigger chess game onto which you haven't yet cottoned on. There's an awful lot more to the RCL saga than you have realised and the trouble is, nobody who knows what's going on can say too much about it. Just think very carefully about how you proceed. By all means critique the product (I haven't seen a V2 so it's all news to me) but be extremely careful about what else you say. Take it easy chap

— Jonathan Cauldwell

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